Search - Deep Purple :: When We Rock We Rock When We Roll We Roll

Milton D. (jd570b) from DUBLIN, VA
Reviewed on 3/30/2012...

A compilation DVD by Deep Purple featuring their best rock songs up until 1974. This has the old classics. Rock the way it was meant to be.

Good, Although Brief, Compilation

Robert J. Schneider | Tacoma, WA USA | 04/11/2004

(4 out of 5 stars)

"Deep Purple had broken up just two years earlier when their record company released the ridiculously-long-titled WHEN WE ROCK, WE ROCK & WHEN WE ROLL, WE ROLL (1978), although the title certainly fit them well. If any classic rock band deserved such a bombastic title for their first best-of compilation, it would be Deep Purple, as their music was massive. Growing out of the late 1960's psychedelia, Deep Purple gradually evolved into a dark, deep, heavy progressive rock band by the end of the decade--they became the "Dark" to Yes's "Light." They enjoyed their first top-charting U.K. single, and first U.S. Top 40, with "Hush" from their 1968 album. They then had a second hit with a brilliantly heavy prog-reworking of Neil Diamond's "Kentucky Woman" in 1969. Both of Deep Purple's glorious first two hits are represented on this compilation. By the end of 1969, original lead singer Rod Evans left, to be replaced by the massively talented former lead singer of Episode 6 (and original star of the Andrew Lloyd Webber musical JESUS CHRIST SUPERSTAR) Ian Gillan. Roger Glover also joined the band at the same time as the new bass guitarist. With these two mad geniuses, the music of Deep Purple changed forever. With them, so did rock 'n' roll.Deep Purple's new lineup (commonly called "Mark II") released their first album, DEEP PURPLE IN ROCK, in 1970. This was the same year that Black Sabbath put out their devastatingly heavy first two albums, and DP's album had no less of an effect on a formerly sleepy rock world. IN ROCK was fast, loud and HEAVY. Although no songs from it are represented here, I felt it was important to mention it as a means of bridging the musical gap between the Mark I & II periods. On this compilation, we get the great, although somewhat shortened, live version of "Smoke On The Water" from the MADE IN JAPAN album (1972) as well as the barn-burning "Highway Star." We also get the studio version (misprinted on the label as being the "live version") of "Woman From Tokyo" (again, somewhat shortened). That DP classic was on their much-troubled, and strangely-titled, 1973 album WHO DO WE THINK WE ARE? This album would prove to be the swansong for both Gillan & Glover, as both left due to feuding with notoriously prickly founder and lead guitarist Ritchie Blackmore. They were replaced soon after by a very young blues-rock singer named David Coverdale, plus former Trapeze bass guitarist and singer Glenn Hughes. Both fit their very different styles surprisingly well in their new roles in Deep Purple, as the album BURN (1974) produced the classic title song that is also on this compilation. Three years after this record was released, DEEPEST PURPLE came into being in 1981. I will go into the circumstances for that album in my review of it. Suffice it to say that, at 12 tracks totalling 63 minutes in length, it easily surpasses the 8-track, 44-minute WHEN WE ROCK, WE ROCK & WHEN WE ROLL, WE ROLL. However it lacks anything from the Mark I period, which they did for good reason (which, again, I will get into in another review at a later date). Both best-of records are worth buying, as they each bring different 'shades' of Deep Purple to the mix, and complement each other well. RECOMMENDED
HIGHLY RECOMMENDED FOR DEEP PURPLE FANS"

Even though the price is high it has great songs

John Peterson | 09/15/1999

(5 out of 5 stars)

""Woman From Tokyo", "Hush", "Space Truckin'" "Kentucky Woman", "Burn" and "Smoke on the Water" are very good songs."